Created data-driven website and provided project management services coordinating efforts of three different service providers

Can you imagine updating a website that is almost 10 years old and has more than 3,174 pages? Ellen Fisher, Publisher of the Women’s Yellow Pages of Greater Philadelphia, the largest, most comprehensive and most widely-used guide to women-owned businesses and women’s organizations in the region, had this project looming over her head for years. She finally bit the bullet and assembled a team to redesign the website with a new look and feel and leverage more advanced technologies to integrate their external database used for recordkeeping and billing with the website.

“Our database was working fine, but our website was in frames and not good for search engine optimization,” explained Fisher. “We didn’t want to re-do everything, since our data collection processes worked well, but our clients wanted to be able to advertise online (in addition to listings), so we needed to create that real estate on our website and be able to manage this new offering.”

Ellen turned to Sandy Clitter of Your Tech Tamer to handle the project management and technical end of the project. YTT had to make sure that the existing data collection process used by the Women’s Yellow Pages continued to function seamlessly, while integrating the new advertising requirements, and adapting the website publication process to the new technology. They had to blend the best of the ‘old’ along with the ‘new’. Your Tech Tamer was able to do all this and at the same time reduce the number of pages to 1,047 while still maintaining the necessary content that Women’s Yellow Page visitors have become accustomed to having available. Of course, the existing website had to remain accessible and fully functional throughout the re-design period.

With more than 25,000 page views a month, over 500 directory listings and 300 advertisers on the website, it is critical that the Women’s Yellow Pages team be able to effectively manage the information and properly fulfill the requests of its advertisers. With the integration of the new website and database, the database now automatically publishes not only the listing, but also the online ads based on duration of time the advertiser paid for the ad to be displayed, the size of the ad, and the location (both which page and in which position) the ad needs to be displayed. Manually managing this process would have been virtually impossible.

“Sandy has helped us streamline our processes and save time,” said Fisher. “The finished product is stellar. It offers our advertisers the chance to gain much more exposure than before. And each and every advertiser has their own optimized page.”

“Sandy held our hand throughout the process,” said Fisher. “She was incredibly helpful in talking us back from the ledge when we heard a new technology buzzword and thought we needed it. She was always teaching us, open to our questions and trying our ideas. It was a much more consultative process than with other vendors we have used. Sandy is always available for questions and is an invaluable part of our team. Accessibility to an expert, like Sandy, is invaluable to a small business without an in-house IT person. She’s one of those amazing people who have the patience of Job, the ability to translate technical gibberish into understandable English, a sunny disposition and a work ethic that, if I were giving out grades, would warrant an A+++.”